Technology Veteran Daniel Akerson To Join The Carlyle Group as Managing Director - Will Focus on Buyout and Venture Investments in North America

Washington, DC – Global private equity firm The Carlyle Group today announced that former XO Communications Chairman Daniel F. Akerson will join the firm as a Managing Director on March 3, 2003. Mr. Akerson will focus on buyout and venture investment opportunities in North America with an emphasis on technology. He will be based in Carlyle’s Washington, DC headquarters.

Carlyle Managing Director and Co-Founder Daniel A. D’Aniello said, “Dan is a superb addition to the firm. His decades of operational and investment experience across both corporate and private equity platforms will strengthen our investment team and sector specialties. Dan’s proven ability to identify emerging and undervalued technologies and bring them to profitably is exactly what our investors demand.”

Mr. Akerson said, “I am pleased to join the leading private equity firm in the world. Carlyle has a decidedly long term view of markets and investing, better enabling it to spot market turns before they happen. I hope to bring appropriate focus to such unique opportunities.”

Mr. Akerson comes to The Carlyle Group from XO Communications, where he served as chairman and chief executive officer from 1999 to early 2003 and led the successful restructuring of the company. During his tenure, revenue grew from $250 million to $1.3 billion annually and the company evolved from a competitive local exchange carrier to a fully integrated competitive telecommunications company.

Prior to XO, Mr. Akerson served as chief executive officer, from 1996 to 1999, and chairman, from 1996 to 2000, of Nextel Communications, Inc. He transitioned the company from an analog walkie/talkie provider into a unique leading edge national digital wireless organization. During this period the company raised roughly $10 billion in a combination of equity and debt and grew revenue to more than $5 billion.

From 1993 to 1996, Mr. Akerson was a general partner at leveraged buyout firm Forstmann, Little & Company. He was responsible for portfolio company General Instrument Corp., serving as chairman and chief executive officer. Under his leadership, the company deployed the first digitally compressed video/cable systems domestically and internationally and doubled revenues to $2.5 billion in a 2-year period.

Prior to Forstmann, Little, Mr. Akerson served in several senior positions at MCI Communications from 1983 to 1993, including executive vice president and chief financial officer from 1987 to 1990 and president and chief operating officer from 1992 to 1993. During his tenure, Mr. Akerson formulated and executed the global strategy to expand MCI, including negotiating a strategic investment by British Telecom. Other accomplishments include the development and successful implementation of innovative consumer telecom products such as Friends and Family and 1-800 Collect and the restructuring and deleveraging of the balance sheet to improve the credit rating from high yield to investment grade status.

Mr. Akerson, 54, earned his BS in engineering from the U.S. Naval Academy and his MSc in economics from the London School of Economics. In 1988, Institutional Investor named him one of the ten best CFOs of the year. Mr. Akerson is a member of the board of directors of the American Express Company and AOL Time Warner Company.

"